Fertilizing House Plants

How to use fertilizer on house plants; get professional tips and advice from an expert on caring for indoor plants and flowers in this free gardening video. View Video Transcript

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eHow Home & Garden Editor

Video Transcript

Hi! My name is Austin Shepard here with Expert Village. Today I am going to talk to you about fertilizing your plants. When you first purchase a household plant, it is most likely going to have enough fertilizer in it to last a good 6 months. So if it is a plant that you are going to keep indoors, you really don't need to fertilize it for a good long while. I know that once that you see that bright green bottle of fertilizer on the shelf and you buy it, you are going to want to use it right off the bat. Remember fertilizer can help the plant when it needs it or it can destroy the plant when it doesn't need it. Fertilizer can actually burn a plant if you put too much of it in the plant. So don't think about it like this is a special liquid or powder that is going to make my plant really thrive, think about it like maybe the soil doesn't have enough of the properties in it to keep the plant growing so I am going to add a little bit more. If you over saturate the soil, you are going to destroy the plant. So go easy on the fertilizer although it is important, it's not something that a plant needs every week. If it is a household plant that you have had for a long time, put a few drops of liquid fertilizer or maybe a tablespoon of crystallized fertilizer into a gallon of water and water the plant as you normally would.